Mercury from fish to spiders to songbirds

Oh, it's the spiders. The mercury-laden songbirds are getting it from mercury-contaminated spiders. Nobody knows yet how how the spiders are getting the mercury. Unless the spiders are eating the mercury-contaminated fish. What a tangled web of pollution, and the first known instance of mercury from fish infiltrating a purely land-based ecosystem (spiders and songbirds).

4 comments:

I don't know that it's that hard to think of plausible explanation for how the mercury is getting out of the water. For instance: what do spiders eat? Insects. What's probably the biggest conveyor belt of biomass from the water to the land? Insects. It seems like the most cryptic part of the equation was finding out that the mercury is getting to the birds via the spiders, but they already figured that part out :)

About Me

I grew up with fishing and the ocean, became a scientist, and now I'm a conservationist. I work for Washington Environmental Council, but the opinions here are my own. Email me at blogfishx (at) gmail (dot) com or about Swim Around Bainbridge at swimbi (at) gmail (dot) com.